Southern Railway to upgrade 61 trains under project ‘Utkrisht’

The Southern Railway will complete upgradation of 61 trains under the project ‘Utkrisht‘ soon. The Tambaram-Nagercoil tri-weekly express, which was upgraded under the scheme, was flagged off from Tambaram recently.

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An official said,”In the first phase, 10 trains were upgraded under the Utkrisht programme. In the second phase, 64 trains were allotted for upgradation for Southern Railway.”

Out of that, 3 trains have been upgraded and the upgradation of the remaining 61 trains will be completed soon, the official said.

The total outlay for upgrading 64 trains in Southern Railway was Rs 67.75 crore, he said.

Utkrisht project involves upgradation of 640 train rakes for improvement in passenger amenities and comfort in the next 2 years at an estimated cost of Rs 400 crore.

It involves giving new paint to the coaches, changing damaged seats and berths, refurbishing the toilets, providing LED lighting and braille inside the compartments and gangways, and enabling coach maintenance services onboard.

Last year in December, Kongu Express which runs between Coimbatore and Hazrat Nizamuddin was the first train to be flagged off under project Utkrisht of the Southern Railways.

At Electric Loco Shed, General Manager inspected the speedometer section, pneumatic test setup, PPIO unit & Electronic Laboratory. He appreciated the work of calibration of speedometer during maintenance.

At EMU Car Shed, General Manager inspected the 3 PhaseEMU rake and Ladies Special EMU Rake alongwith the maintenance activities in the different sections of the shed.

General Manager was given a detailed presentation at the sheds regarding the various maintenance activities. He also interacted with the recognized Unions and assured them that the matters relating to staff would resolve expeditiously.

Sh. T. P Singh, General Manager said that there should be increase in reliability of Locomotives & EMUs and to increase the outage of sheds. He instructed that the “Dos and Don’ts” and other safety instructions in the risk prone or critical areas of workplace should be followed by the maintenance staff.

GM interacted with maintenance staff at the sheds and exhorted them to maintain high quality standards and not to compromise with safety guidelines to be followed during the various maintenance activities.